Orchid flowers are celebrated for their beauty and extraordinary diversity, displaying variation in just about every floral trait imaginable. Such a wide range of traits, however, means too that each species of orchid requires a unique pollination strategy for reproduction. And when it comes to ensuring pollination, some orchids go to notorious lengths—resorting to deceit by luring pollinators with attention-grabbing features normally associated with food or other rewards but that in orchids are only empty promises.

In most plants, including the majority of orchids, pollinators such as bees, flies, and birds are rewarded with nectar or pollen for their services. But about one-third of the estimated 30,000 orchid species in the world rely on pollinator deception, exploiting in masterful fashion a wide array of preferences exhibited by animals, such as attraction to specific color patterns or odors.

Among the most commonly employed deceptive strategies is food deception, in which orchid flowers take advantage of a pollinator’s tendency to associate a specific perceptual cue with food. For example, the green-veined, or green-winged, orchid (Anacamptis morio), found primarily in western Europe, produces a scent that attracts the plant’s main pollinators—queen bumblebees—which associate the odor with nectar, one of their favorite foods. The orchid, however, does not produce nectar, and hence the queen does not receive a food reward for her pollinating efforts.

Interestingly, even though plants that produce nectar enjoy a much higher rate of pollination than nectar-deceptive flowers, the genetic diversity of the green-veined orchid depends on deception. This is because the green-veined orchid is hermaphroditic (having both male and female reproductive parts) and thus is capable of self-pollination, which, although beneficial when pollinators are absent, places limitations on genetic variation, producing an effect known as inbreeding depression. Inbreeding depression restricts the genetic fitness of subsequent generations. Hence, nectar deception in the green-veined orchid, because it facilitates the mixing of pollen between different individual plants, promotes genetic diversity in the species and has been favored evolutionarily over nectar production.

An estimated 1,000 orchid species resort to sexual deception, in which flowers attract pollinators by producing scents that mimic sex pheromones. A striking example of this form of deception is seen in the orchid Chiloglottis trapeziformis, which lures males of its pollinator, the thynnine wasp (Neozeleboria cryptoides), when it releases a compound identical to a sex pheromone normally produced by female thynnine wasps. The males are enticed to mate with the flower, and in the process of attempting to do so, they pick up pollen from the flower and transfer it to a second plant when again lured by the pheromone-mimicking odor.

Although it is unclear exactly how and why orchids evolved the ability to exploit animal preferences in the first place, researchers are beginning to close the gap in our understanding of plant deception strategies. The finding of the role of deception in promoting genetic diversity in the green-veined orchid is one example. Other research on the evolution of deception suggests that the specificity of orchid pollination systems plays a key role in the success of deception. For example, pollinator specificity is suspected to increase the chances that an orchid’s pollen is transferred to an individual of the same orchid species. Thus, for certain orchid species, deception is a very valuable survival strategy.